Detroit Free Press Sports Writer

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Tigers third baseman Miguel Cabrera stretches in the outfield warming up to play third base before the Aug. 30 game at Comerica Park. / Julian H. Gonzalez/DFP

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For a while, it didn’t seem to matter that he was hurt. Remember that late August afternoon when Miguel Cabrera turned on an inside fastball and blasted it into the second deck at the New York Mets’ stadium?

A month ago Cabrera was hitting with such frequency and power we had to reach back decades for comparisons. Every at-bat was appointment viewing, a referendum on his place in the sport.

Then it stopped. Quietly at first, a game here, another there. One day it was an abdominal soreness. The next it was groin discomfort.

When Cabrera did play — and he always wanted to play — he couldn’t extend the bat as easily, or whip it through the zone as forcefully. That liquid swing was awry.

Balls that found the outfield seats began dropping at the warning track. Line drives ripped into gaps provided enough time to get to first, but no farther.

He couldn’t run. He couldn’t move laterally. He couldn’t turn his hips with the kind of torque that had produced one of the greatest five-month stretches in history.

Unfortunately, the season lasts six.

We’ll never know how it might have ended otherwise. In the end, his core-related ailments were too debilitating.

Yet, during the final month, Cabrera missed just four games. This should be celebrated. Not because of rah-rah toughness, but because it was professional. He also knew his teammates benefited from his presence at the plate.

“We are trying to win,” Torii Hunter told me during the last home stand, before the Tigers clinched a playoff spot at Minnesota last week. “And Miggy gives us the best chance.”

When Cabrera arrived in Detroit in 2008, he was among the game’s most gifted hitters, but not its most dedicated. In short, he gave away too many at-bats.

Major-leaguers step to the plate at some 600 times a year. To succeed, they must block out the rest of their life, no matter how tired, or depressed, or anxious, or angry, or distracted.

See and react.

The all-timers do this. Every. Single. At-bat.

Cabrera didn’t. Until last season. The result was the Triple Crown.

I was in Kansas City the night he won it and asked him how he’d managed the feat.

“Jim Leyland,” he said. “He pushed me to do something special here. I learn a lot from him.”

The message?

Grind out every at-bat. It’s a cliché we often dismiss, of course. We shouldn’t. Not every big-leaguer follows this mantra from spring to summer to fall. Human nature gets in the way. The great ones, however, achieve this state of grace, a place Cabrera inhabited from April until September.

You remember, right? Home runs sprayed to every section of the park. Line drives ripped into centerfield camera wells.

His performance became a kind of currency, and we exchanged it happily among ourselves. When he hit that homer at Citi Field in New York against the Mets, he’d pulled his hands toward his body mid-swing, a split-second adjustment of balance and agility few players can match.

About then, it seemed he would keep blasting away, muscle strain or not. It was Aug. 25, and he’d upped his batting average to .360 and had mashed 42 home runs.

Then, incredibly, he hit two more the rest of the year. Comparisons to the Babe began to fade. So did his team’s offense. That he led the league in batting average (.348) and finished second in home runs and RBIs reminds us how improbable his season had been.

But it’s over now. The playoffs are here. Game 1 against Oakland is at 9:37 p.m. Friday, Game 2 at 9:07 p.m. Saturday. And the only question that matters is what happens next.

If you find yourself with a spare moment, though, I’d suggest you consider this: Cabrera spent the last month playing in terrific discomfort, aware of what his actions mean. That reminds me of a line his hitting coach shared with me earlier this summer, a line worth sharing now.

“He has really changed quite a bit and become quite a man,” Lloyd McClendon said.

FSD broadcaster Mario Impemba will answer your Tigers questions in a live chat at 12:30 p.m. Wednesday at freep.com/sports. Submit early questions here. And join us for live blogs during every Tigers playoff game.

Columnist Jeff Seidel will answer your questions about all things Detroit sports in a live chat at 1 p.m. Thursday at freep.com/sports. Submit early questions here.